As the holiday approaches, it seems like making some kind of blinkenlights project would allow some fun hacking, but also be within the spirit of the holiday. I encountered the idea of “CheerLights” during my morning surfing. The basic idea is to create a global network of colored Christmas lights, all of which change color simultaneously as they receive update notices via the Internet/twitter.

How to make a CheerLights controller with Arduino and ioBridge

The project makes use of GE Color Effects lights, which are cool because they are individually addressable RGB leds on a single control bus. I don’t think this project really makes adequate use of that feature, but it’s still pretty cool. The author uses an ioBridge (which he is the creator of) which seems like a very cool gadget, but which is pretty expensive ($120). I could probably write a little gateway between my home server and the Arduino via Xbee, which would be quite a bit cheaper.

Pretty neat idea though, and getting me thinking of a Christmas project…